{"id":219088,"date":"2016-06-02T10:22:28","date_gmt":"2016-06-02T10:22:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=219088"},"modified":"2016-06-02T10:22:28","modified_gmt":"2016-06-02T10:22:28","slug":"hassan-ayariga-backs-social-media-shutdown-for-elections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=219088","title":{"rendered":"Hassan Ayariga backs social media shutdown for elections"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The founder and leader of the All People\u2019s Congress (APC), Mr Hassan Ayariga has thrown his support behind a proposal by the police to block social media on Election Day.<\/p>\n

In a radio interview on Wednesday, Mr Ayariga said if even the Inspector General of Police (IGP) wants to block it for a whole month, he would support it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[contextly_sidebar id=”nc9sEPVrErGZQ9bUhbhDqFMlzOyayv7q”]Speaking on Accra based Okay FM, Mr Ayariga said individuals ought to have a commitment to peace and for that he \u201cfully supports this course.\u201d<\/p>\n

“One day of switching off your data, it shouldn’t be a problem, because at times you wake up a whole day and your own data goes off without you knowing, you turn the data, it won’t work, you don’t complain. you don’t call the service providers to complain,” he said.<\/p>\n

The Ghana Police Service last week hinted that it was considering blocking social media services in the country on November 7, the day of the general election to avoid violence.<\/p>\n

According to the IGP, Mr John Kudalor, the abuse of social media platforms by both political parties and ordinary Ghanaians had often created “unnecessary” tension in the country and that given the strain that preparations towards the elections was putting on the country\u2019s security agencies, it would be unwise to ignore the potential of social media as a critical point for violence.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt one stage I said that if it becomes critical on the eve and also on the Election Day, we shall block all social media as other countries have done. We\u2019re thinking about it,\u201d the IGP said.<\/p>\n

The disclosure by the IGP has elicited varied comments with many\u00a0opposing the move arguing that it was going to be a dent on Ghana\u2019s democracy.<\/p>\n

Mr Ayariga is vying to become president of Ghana on the ticket of the APC, which he recently formed.<\/p>\n

Ccommenting on the development, he said he fully supports the move and that the IGP should go ahead and block social media on Election Day..<\/p>\n

\u201cAt times a whole day, you turn on your data and it won\u2019t work, you don\u2019t complain, you don\u2019t call the service providers and say look my data is off and for that matter you have to do\u2026. Even MTN, sometimes you call a friend and it will tell you that the mobile phone you are calling is switched off, meanwhile it would not be switched off. Do you complain? For God\u2019s sake Ghanaians, what the IGP is saying is for the sake of our peace. We cannot just have peace without paying for the price,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

“I want to be president and nobody can rule a burning nation [sic] …so lets all be committed to the peace that we are talking about,” he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Source: Graphic Online<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The founder and leader of the All People\u2019s Congress (APC), Mr Hassan Ayariga has thrown his support behind a proposal by the police to block social media on Election Day. In a radio interview on Wednesday, Mr Ayariga said if even the Inspector General of Police (IGP) wants to block it for a whole month, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":210243,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[2647,2648,58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-219088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2647","category-election","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=219088"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219088\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/210243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=219088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=219088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=219088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}